Emergency response team preps for hurricane season

As hurricane season approaches, many people are more concerned with their safety in the event of an emergency, and the College Park Community Emergency Response Team (CERT) is ready to teach others how to be prepared.

The group will offer evening classes in citizen emergency preparedness training during the summer months.

"CERT training is really big in California, and has been for a while," said Bill Jennings, who is the CERT College Park Team Leader. "After Hurricane Andrew, a lot of organizations in Orlando started being more concerned about community safety."

The first CERT class in Orlando was held in 1994, with College Park offering its first one in 1997.

"CERT gets people thinking about what they need in the event of an emergency," Jennings said. "We teach them how to do emergency medical procedures and get people ready for the paramedics. We also teach people how to be prepared for a disaster."

CERT class attendees also will learn disaster fire suppression, search and rescue operations, as well as disaster psychology and team organization, Jennings said.

"We want people to understand that they can make a difference in their community if there's an emergency," he said.

One way to make a difference is knowing how to communicate when there's an emergency. That's why the College Park CERT is part of the ham radio emergency network.

"We got a FEMA grant for ham radio equipment several years ago," said Jerry Porter, who is the CERT ham radio emergency coordinator. "But nobody was licensed to use it, so I became the first ham-trained, and I started teaching classes."

The CERT ham team is set up to communicate with emergency services in a disaster.

"We want people to know there are ways to communicate if the phone lines go down," Porter said. "We can tell people what's going on, if there's a tree down, or if people are hurt when there's an emergency."

The CERT ham net communicates with the Orange County Communications Auxiliary, relaying messages about any situations in College Park.

"People have handheld radios, and they can communicate with Bill, who then relays the messages to me at the Orlando station," Porter said.

Each Wednesday at 7 p.m., the CERT ham net tests the system to make sure they are ready in the event of a disaster.

"It's important to be ready as we get closer to hurricane season," Porter said. "We are the eyes and ears of the neighborhood in an emergency."

If an emergency is called into the communications auxiliary, it is entered into an online database to help expedite the response by emergency personnel.

"We want people to know that if there's an emergency in the community, there are people looking out for everyone's safety," Jennings said. "We have CERT people trained to respond in the neighborhood, and we have people who know how to get the message out when communication systems are down."

For details about CERT, or to sign up for summer CERT training, call Bill Jennings at 407-898-2946 or email him at clericbill@aol.com.